In the field of civil construction, the use of prefabricated reinforcing panels to make walls, floors and other similar reinforced concrete structures is known. These panels generally consist of a slab of expanded material, e.g. a polystyrene one, sandwiched between a pair of metal mesh sheets; the metal mesh sheets are usually made of electro-welded steel wires. Reinforcing panels are made in the form of modular elements to be assembled on site. In particular, the panels are designed to be integrated on site with concrete casting so as to make load-bearing structural elements made of reinforced concrete.
Patent EP 0 591 849 illustrates, for example, a panel for the construction of walls or floors consisting of a slab of expanded material, provided with thermal and acoustic insulation features, clamped between two metal mesh sheets which are mutually connected by transverse elements passing through the slab of insulating material. The slab of insulating material has parallel corrugations on the opposite faces and is crossed, on a middle plane, by a cavity wherein a metal cage is housed as a reinforcement.
To produce the aforesaid reinforcing panels, the assembly of the slabs of expanded material to the metal mesh sheets, on a welding bench, is usually carried out using transverse connection segments made of, in turn, steel wires. These transverse wires are pushed or guided through the slabs of expanded material and then are cut to size and welded at their ends to the metal meshes.
The assembly operations of the slabs of expanded material to the metal mesh sheets and the welding of the wires transversal to the aforesaid sheets are carried out using suitable equipment. The equipment used for this purpose is generally both structurally and functionally complex, and requires a wide operating space.
In addition, it is often claimed that the production of reinforcing panels is laborious and not easy to implement. It should be noted that the slab of expanded material and the metal mesh sheets must be properly aligned to form the required sandwich structure.
A further drawback that has been criticized in the relevant field is the fact that the transport of the traditional reinforcing panels to the installation area is not easy due to their size, notwithstanding their low weight, resulting in a manifest increase in building costs.
To overcome these drawbacks, patent application WO 2016/005917 proposed the use of a reinforcing panel comprising a honeycomb structure formed by a plurality of sticks obtained from a strip of band material, mutually associated on orthogonal geometric planes and shaping bilaterally an ordered series of first and second hooking means, protruding from the same honeycomb structure to engage and retain reinforcing metal wires.
Nevertheless, the production of the reinforcing panels thus designed has proved to be laborious, especially as regards the preparation of the aforementioned honeycomb structure.